Dear Reader,

I twisted open a bottle of orange Gatorade and, because I was feeling especially special, I poured it into a glass with ice cubes.

And when I say glass, I mean a drinking container made out of clear glass where I can see what is in there. What I mean is not plastic.

And by that, I mean that I was intentional with my drink of choice.  

It’s mundane moments like this that I’m doing more of and enjoying. I take time to sit and journal, no matter what time I wake up. I am intentional with my to do list and when it’s time to clock out, I clock out, opting for time with family, reading, watching something or even just sitting and staring into space.

This is what my quarantine has partially been like. These moments of intentional living.

I am learning to live on purpose.

I send letters to friends I can easily reach on Twitter or any other social media. And I am enjoying that process more that I realized I would!

When I ask people how they are, I genuinely want to know. I wait for the answer and I listen with more than my ears. Then I’m asked the same question. They also want to know. And there is a commonality with the answer. The look, the sigh, the nervous giggle. Yes, we understand without saying much. It’s the same for both of us and in the moment, we are humans reflecting humanity back at each other.

It’s in these moments that my opinion in humanity starts to crack. Before the pandemic and even during parts of this quarantine, my opinion on people hadn’t change or even worsened. But then…

  • Nurses and doctors show up to work every day at high costs to them and their families so that other families and people can have hope of keeping their loved ones.
  • There is an army of people who are blissfully smarter than me, trying to figure out a vaccine to keep people alive. I am thankful for them.
  • People are gentler with each other. Not necessarily better but gentler, more grounded in being a good person than just finishing a to do list.
  • There is more grace in the world. Not enough but just enough. And that’s all we need to keep hope going.

And it’s almost enough to begin to change my opinion in humanity, to like people a bit more and hate them a bit less. It’s hard to hate people who, when the chips are down, want to help you win.

And not everyone does. We still have those who have picked and will pick capitalism over life. Those people remind me who we were/are.

But the others, the ones with grace, remind me that we can be the people we need to be to save lives, to live better, to live happy.

We just need hope and grace. I hope we keep it beyond a pandemic and a quarantine.

Humming to my playlist,

-Icess